Grube Münden Mine Portal and Historic Narrow-Gauge Railway

The Münden pit was at times the most productive heavy spar pit in Europe.
Around 1800 mining of Ni-Co ores.
From 1865 to 1951: barite
1951: Shutdown of the pit
The entrance to the mine is shown restored, inside there is a small spring. In front of the entrance to the pit there is a former pit railway and the mining period in the Richelsdorf Mountains is clearly shown on an information board.

After the "Martlingereder Gang" of the Münden mine, about 800 meters southwest, collapsed up to the sixth level in 1900, further mining could only be continued under difficult conditions. A new tunnel several hundred meters long was driven from here down to the eighth level of the productive barite deposit. In the years that followed, the mineral was quickly mined through the new extraction tunnel and transported to the heavy spar mill in Sontra for further processing by narrow-gauge railway. In November 1951, spar mining ended, supplies were running out, and mining the remainder had become uneconomical. The portal of the former tunnel, which is worth seeing, has been restored true to the original, the underground access has been bricked up.